


Inevitable

by Cat_Moon



Category: Moonlight (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 01:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19780150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Cat_Moon
Summary: Mickbeth was inevitable from the beginning.





	Inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the episode, "Click." As with most of my ML fic, written while the show was still on the air, so doesn't conform to canon.

Beth Turner flipped the channels on the remote randomly. If she saw another ad for Ambien she was going to scream in frustration. Disgusted, she shut the TV off, got out of bed, and wandered into the kitchen to peer into the refrigerator.

It was well after midnight, and she was battling a case of insomnia. It seemed more and more lately she was finding herself naturally shifting towards the nighttime hours...maybe something to do with dating a vampire, she thought.

 _Mick and I are dating!_ She couldn’t help the grin of satisfaction that spread over her face. He was being frustratingly slow about it, but she was grateful for just this much concession from him. There was a time when she wondered if he’d ever let anything real happen between them.

Beth glanced at the clock again and debated her next move. She had a job interview later; she really needed to get some sleep soon. It wasn’t like she had to have a job immediately, she had enough savings to tide her over for awhile… but it was something she felt she should do. Keep open to opportunities that might present themselves. She’d gotten a few pangs of guilt at using Josh’s insurance money to live off of while she was unemployed, but squashed them by assuring herself that Josh would be in total agreement with her for quitting Buzz Wire now that it had gone from borderline to total sleaze reporting.

It was the other reason for her quitting the job that caused the guilt.

Needing to do something physical, Beth decided to start her spring cleaning. The bedroom closet was her first destination – there were boxes in there that she hadn’t even unpacked from her last move, and she had no idea what was even in them anymore. She got a stool and took down a few of the older ones that were behind everything else, bringing them to the living room table.

After making herself a glass of warm milk, she sat down on the couch and removed the lid on the first one.

Beth smiled fondly. This was the box that held her childhood stuff: report cards, old valentine’s cards, art projects… She began sorting through the box, putting things into two piles; keep and toss. That macaroni American flag that was shedding stale pasta all over the bottom of the box really wasn’t salvageable or necessary. A card from her first boyfriend would stay.

The small notebook was in the bottom of the box. Beth drew it out reverently. She’d carried it around with her all that one, hard semester as a high school freshman. It was her best friend, her confidant. To everyone else it looked like a teenager’s class notebook, maybe it held notes for the math test, or parts of the English assignment. Only she knew the truth.

XXX

Beth watched the man change the flat tire in disgust, the other half of her attention on the phone at her ear.

“Sorry, Mick, I had a flat tire and I’m running late.”

“Do you need me to come help you?”

“No, my auto club is here. Where are you?”

“In the car on my way to your place.” They had a casual “date” for a night of DVD watching.

“You don’t need to wait for me, just go ahead and make yourself at home. You know your way around. I should be there soon. Don’t start the movie without me though!”

It was only afterward; when the tire was fixed and she was again on her way home that, with a jolt of horror, she remembered she’d never put the box away. Or the notebook…

XXX

Mick stowed the personal ‘refreshment’ he’d brought for the night in Beth’s fridge and wandered back into the living room, smirking a bit at the mess. She wasn’t as neat as him, but normally the place wouldn’t be quite that cluttered. He had to move a decrepit macaroni flag aside just to sit down on the couch. He grinned fondly as he put it aside.

The notebook was open on the table in front of him, face down. Johnny Depp stared at him from the cover. Teenage girls had been buying school notebooks like that for decades. With nothing better to do, he picked it up and flipped it over to see what subject it held. The page it was open to was dog eared, as if it had been read a lot. The subject, however, wasn’t one that was taught in any high school.

The subject was him.

_I think he looks like Johnny Depp. I know he’s tall, dark and handsome. His arms are strong, when they’re around me I’ll always feel safe. He’s my guardian angel. He saved me when I was little. Sometimes I wish he was here now. My mom says I’ll outgrow it – adults always think they know everything! She won’t even tell me his name. I stopped asking questions a long time ago. How can I explain what I feel in my heart? That I know he’s always watching over me. He’s my prince and he’ll ride in on his white horse and save me from this mediocrity. You think I don’t know how that sounds? Why do you think I stopped talking about him a long time ago? I **so** don’t need any more therapy, thanks very much. _

_But he’s always here. It’s like a part of him is inside of me. He’s mine, and I’m his. It sounds crazy, you’re thinking how can we be together when he’s so much older than I am? I don’t understand it either, but deep inside me I somehow know it’s true. We belong together. I know one day we’ll meet again, and then the searching will be over. I’ll know him, and he’ll know me, and I’ll never let him go again._

_I love you, my guardian angel._

The door flew open and Beth skidded to a frantic halt just inside, dropping her bag to the floor as she took in the scene before her. Mick had looked up when she burst in, notebook still in hand.

“Oh my god, you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.” For the first time in her life – including when she’d woken up in Mick’s apartment the morning after coming onto him high on B.C. and wearing nothing but his shirt – Beth was embarrassed.

Mick looked somewhat guilty, a bit of a fish out of water, gaping, not knowing quite what to do. He waved distractedly at the book. “I was waiting… it was just laying there, open….”

Where were earthquakes when you needed one? Beth thought, praying the floor would cooperate and open up and swallow her. “I think I’m going to die now,” she pronounced, mortified. She felt her cheeks flaming, and the knowledge that Mick would have sensed them long before she did only made it worse.

Almost as an afterthought, Mick dropped the notebook back down to the table. “Okay, _now_ it’s weird,” he pronounced, alluding to their recent conversation where she’d reminded him that he’d known her since she was four.

The apartment was quiet, save for the ticking of the clock that suddenly sounded loud even to Beth’s normal ears. It seemed neither one of them had a clue what to say to the other now. The silence stretched one, agonizingly.

Finally, finally, one of them was able to break the awkward limbo. “All this time, I thought _I_ was the only weird one here.” Something that could have been the ghost of a grin flitted to Mick's face.

What else was there to do?  Beth started laughing, and then they were both laughing. “Well, now you know,” she commented.

The veneer of normalcy they’d managed to construct over the past few days, pretending to be just any other couple, dating, “getting to know each other”, cracked. Speed dating? They had a speed relationship. Who else forms an eternal bond, falls in love, then decides to get to know each other and supposedly see where the relationship is going?

“We’re backwards,” Beth stated.

“It’s pretty silly,” Mick ventured, sounding a bit unsure.

Beth moved slowly into the room, finally remembering to close the door behind her. “Why are we trying to be something we’re not?”

“What are we?” he asked when she was standing in front of him.

“I think you know.” Beth watched her hand rise up to rest on his chest.

Mick's gaze never left hers as his hand came up to cradle her face. They both leaned forward, and then his lips grazed hers, slowly, gently. He’d think it was crazy, if the connection wasn’t so strong, so undeniable. Overriding all their common sense and any objections. Overriding everything.

“Wanna do some B&E together?” Mick asked.

“Later. Right now, I think we need to catch up with ourselves.”

Beth took his hand, and he let her lead him into the bedroom.

You can fight yourself; your needs and desires. You can fight city hall, and for your rights. You can even fight the truth and fight for your love. But you cannot fight the inevitable. You can try, but all you do is tire yourself out and cause all sorts of complications. In the end, it’s still there waiting for you.

It’s inevitable.

The end

5/4/08


End file.
